The Beach II: A tiny bit of Terra Incognita ..: Song Cau

I still get up at 3:30 to do some work and to check what's new in the world. Oh, what's that? An Anti-Immigration protest in Vancouver, LOL !  

Think about that one for a second.  



For this to make ANY sense, the protesters must ALL be Canadian First Nations members. 
Or Indians as they are still called in some strange circles. (Hint:  India is somewhere else !)









Nope, just your typical WHITE idiot !

An Anti-Everything demonstrator in Vancouver today.

This man thinks that he's NOT an immigrant????   LOL

But what's the use?  There will always be retards.  And the longer you look, the more of them you will find.

And I still head out for my beach walk & swim at 5:00 whereby again I'm not the first one out there.  Actually, by now I recognize the woman in the pinkish flowery dress who always walks a little bit further than I do.

How could I NOT go swimming right here and now?

5:45
I'm back in the room and I'm getting hungry !

I only flew Philippine Airline for the first time 3 weeks ago and their music section had the first Flume album available.  I've been playing it almost non-stop on every PA flight since and I just discovered the entire album on YouTube. Good Stuff, LOL.

6:05
I'm talking to Grandma on Skype and right in the middle of the call there is another power failure.  WTF?  Fortunately the power comes back during the 2nd call using my telephone.

Time for another swim?  Oh, why not, LOL. I won't have that opportunity any more once I return to Vancouver.

Probably only older people remember the scene when Ursula Andress steps out of the ocean in the Bond movie Dr No.

Anyhoo, The Beach is so similar in appearance and desertedness to the Bond beach, that every time I come out for a swim, I have to think of the above scene.  LOL

8:00
Breakfast

I wake up at 10:15 and feel like an 18-wheeler ran over me.

Everyone, including the hosts, are hanging around in hammocks.  
WOW, it IS a lazy day.  
But NO, that's one thing I always think while floating in the water under a brightening sky during my dawn-to-sunrise walks and swims:  
Here is the start of ANOTHER day.  Must make the best of it.

I hop on the scooter and ride the 13 kms to Song Cau

The scooter parked in front of Agribank

I ride around town looking for a Shopping Mall that was shown on Google Maps

No shopping mall here, but definitely a Working Harbour !

I can see the OTHER side of that GIANT sand dune from The Beach

I finally find the Google-advertised Shopping Mall.  But it ain't one!  It's the local fish market and it's already deserted at this hour .

Time to leave Song Cau.

On the way back I do two U-ies on the highway to try one of the seafront restaurants.

 A lot of confused looks, as usual.  I make the menu motion with me hands and she produces one.  OF COURSE, it is in Viet and without pictures.

So I sign that I will look at the table of people already eating. The cook even understands me because when I’m ogling the food on the table of 5 young Viets with astonished even affronted stares directed at me, the cook is right behind me and nods when I point at a dish of prawns and say com.

I walk over to an empty table by the water when I see another lone diner WAVE me over to his table. 
I accept his invitation. BAD MOVE, LOL.   

His English vocabulary is even smaller than my Vietnamese vocab.  
But he insists on keeping talking with a meaningful facial expression.  
He doesn’t stop ! Time to leave the table and take some pictures !

My Viet table companion must have figured out by now that none of us understands even a single word the other is saying.

By now I am convince that the stuff he is happily sipping from a small clear plastic bottle is anything BUT water.   The guy is PLASTERED.

At some point I consider getting my laptop out and moving to another table.  But whatever I would have said in English would have insulted him.   And I don’t think insulting people of a host country is the thing to do.   So I stay and he keeps talking.   By now I have resorted to just freely talking back in English.  He obviously doesn’t understand a word but at some point says the only English word I ever hear from him “Thank you”.   I’m glad I didn’t move tables, LOL

My opponent is gone but the SPIKE is still there 

He extends his hand....

He wants to shake hands.

OMG, he wants to shake hands RIGHT ABOVE the metal spike that holds what passes for napkins in these parts.

Don’t flinch!  
This is a test!
Can’t show the Viets what wusses Westerners really are.  But then they already know that from the cowards that rained Napalm and Agent Orange on them from 30,000 feet.

My hand survives the surprisingly vice-grip-like shake without any deep and ugly puncture marks.

Hu!  That was close !

Who says that lunch can’t be an adventure, LOL.

OMG, what now?

An old bent-over man with a thin fuzzy Ho-Chi-Minh beard (REALLY !)  extends one hand with what could be lottery tickets or parking permit slips and holds out the other hollow hand. 

I tell him in English that I don’t even know what they are but then get out my wallet and give him 5000 Dong.  

Cam On and a big smile are my reward, but none of the paper slips. 

What if my ticket wins?   That's ok, I already won.

Total for my prawn meal and one beer: 50,000 VND (about $2.50)

12:00
I'm back in the hotel.
Hang on, are those COWS in the yard?   

Since they run around free everywhere, they can't be THAT dangerous, so I approach them and wave my arms.  

They probably have NEVER seen a person THIS TALL approach them, so they RUN, LOL.

15:00
Time for a swim ;-)

And time for a nap ;-)

18:30 
I've walked over to dinner at my host's place with an instant noodle soup.  I have to stop eating those huge dinners every day !

Surprise, the partner of a possible future business transaction is also there. He is fixing the water pump of the hotel owners.   I've had my doubts about that business transaction, but my gut feeling tells me that I've just met an honest man. 

I learn something else.  The Viet wife of the German owner is not a Buddhist like most Viets, but a Protestant Christian, a TINY minority in Vietnam with about 1.5 % of the Viet population being of that faith. 
If you told me that someone was calling themselves a Christian in the US or Germany, I might be tempted not to get too close to the sanctimonious bastards.  
But in Vietnam being a Christian still places some obligations on you. Now I finally understand why people in this village made fun of my smoking and wine consumption, LOL.   OMG, MUST hide all those empty wine bottles, LOL.

21:00
My last cigarette on the veranda.  OMG it's quiet.  Even the ocean seems to have calmed down and the waves gently expending their energy in the sand only emit a whisper.  Good night !